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I silenced him with a finger against his lips. “And what about your life? Would she want you to spend the rest of it holed up in her house like it was some kind of mausoleum, being miserable with yourself because you happened to have a few uncharitable thoughts in the face of immense grief?”
He shook his head again, awe dawning in his eyes.
“You keep underselling what happened to you to focus on this preconceived notion of how you should have felt about it. You had your entire vision of your future destroyed in one fell swoop. Your relationship with Gwen. Your career. Your family. Your body. It all changed overnight as the result of you doing something courageous. You didn’t drive past their stalled-out car. You stopped and put yourself in harm’s way to save other people. And your entire world changed because of it. So what if you had one maybe-kinda-shitty-but-understandable thought where you wished it hadn’t happened? You’re human.” I poked him in the chest with the last two words.
He blew out a breath. I expected him to keep arguing with me about it. Instead, he crushed his lips to mine.
His kiss was filled with hope and desperation. Audacity and terror. He breathed me in like I was the last bit of oxygen in the tank, and he was a scuba diver still a hundred feet below the surface.
“Don’t leave.” He whispered the words against my lips while my dizzy brain tried to comprehend what he said.
“Leave?”
“I was sure that after this morning you were going to come back, grab your stuff, and tell me you were going back to the motel.” His mouth trailed down my neck. “Stay here.”
I tried to ignore the sinking feeling in my chest when I finally absorbed his words. He meant don’t leave tonight. Not: don’t leave, full stop.
It left me a bit raw, being foolish enough to think he was asking me a bigger question. Since Josh, I hadn’t wanted anyone to ask me for more. Too bad I wanted it now from someone who lived seven hundred miles away. And was just starting to dig his way out from under a pile of unresolved baggage.
And who knows, he could wake up tomorrow acting like Mr. Frost again. Hot and cold was his specialty.
“Please.” He murmured the word into my collarbone, sending a charge of electricity across my skin.
A hot shudder ran up my neck. Down my arms. Below my navel. But I was more worried about the erratic staccato happening behind my ribs. Reserved, holding-myself-back-because-I-don’t-think-I-deserve-good-things Drew was already a force to be reckoned with. What would happen if he let me all the way in? Would I survive when it came time to leave?
I was terrified, but I hadn’t put myself through years of therapy to keep living my life in fear.
With both hands framing his face, I pulled his head up to look me in the eye. “If I stay, no more holding back the pieces you think aren’t good enough. I get all of you.”
His expression held a mixture of wonder and trepidation. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed and nodded. “Deal.”
He stood with me in his arms, newlywed-style.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To christen my bed.”
